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GARAGE

The making of Garage

In the midst of yet another lockdown, spring 2021, all performances were canceled once again. In addition, Marije suffered a complicated ankle fracture. So what to do as a theatre maker? Sitting at home behind the geraniums? Oh no!
A post on Facebook by someone who was cleaning out the attic provided the starting point for a new performance.

Attic find
The toy garage, an attic find we got from a friend, brought new creative energy. When Gérard saw it, he was immediately enchanted.
Theatres closed and only one visitor allowed per day? “Hey, then I can be that one visitor, with a performance.” The idea for a solo table performance for in people’s homes was born.
A question on Facebook already yielded a nice cast of actors in the form of cars of various kinds. Both new and shiny collector’s items as well as broken and worn-out cars in which the soul of the playing child seemed to have settled.

During the lockdown, the living room table was our studio where we researched and improvised.
Old memories of playing with cars lying on the floor in the living room as a child and of self-assembled garages resurfaced and served as inspiration.
In addition, we researched into early 1960s, the period from which the garage originates. And that’s how the fake 60ties TV news voice and the old-fashioned choice of vocabulary for the text came up.

The result of the research was a hilariuos sitcom with scenes and dialogues and a lot of characters. The actors in this performance are toy cars. Well, actually not the cars themselves, but their drivers and owners. We hear their voices of in the dialogues full of puns and silly jokes, but we do not see them.

Marije co-wrote the texts and the screenplay from the hospital bed in the livingroom and did part of the research and direction. The final performance was shaped in sessions with theatre maker Josje Eijkenboom and director Lidwien Roothaan.

More on Garage

Check the  page about the performance and the photo and videopage with all of the cast!